Despite ambitious targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions, renewable energy use and energy efficiency, the EU was unable to play a central role in last year´s climate negotiations in Copenhagen. Lack of internal coordination was one reason, the EU budget not being adapted to the climate goals another.

There have been large increases in budget deficits throughout the EU, leading to considerable rises in the stock of public debt as a percentage of GDP. The costs of maintaining high debt levels should not exaggerated.

The economic and financial crisis was one of the most important issues handled during the Swedish EU presidency. The outcome, preceded by at times difficult negotiations, was a political decision concerning a new framework for supervision of the financial market in the EU.

The extent to which low-wage trade competition in the service sector with posted workers should be allowed in the EU has been a hot issue recently. In Sweden, the so-called Vaxholm conflict has become the symbol for this debate.

 The common currency, the euro, and the common monetary policy were introduced in the EU in 1999 to improve the internal market, under the slogan “One Market, One Money”. It was expected that the common currency would promote more trade and investment between the countries that joined the European currency union.

The external dimension of the European Union’s policy on migration and asylum has become an increasingly important feature of the Union’s relations with third countries. It is shaped not only by the foreign policy interests of the member states but also by changes in internal politics of the member states.

Circular migration has become a central concept for the future EU migration policy, implying that migrants should be encouraged to move repeatedly between the country of origin and the host country. The basic purpose is to utilise international labour mobility to make both countries’ economies more efficient.

The EU budget review will enter a new phase this autumn when the European Commission presents its long-awaited proposals for budget reform. At this seminar SIEPS will publish a new report, How to Reform the EU Budget? A Methodological Toolkit, in which EU spending is examined in detail.

The intention of the ongoing review of the EU budget is to create a budget that is better adapted at facing future challenges. At the same time it raises fundamental questions about what the EU is and should do.

National courts are Community courts and as such they should do everything needed to make sure that the preliminary rulings procedure functions as efficiently as possible. The effectiveness of this system is obviously based on a healthy dialogue (discourse) between the two main protagonists: the Court of Justice and the national court.